Hudson Valley Community College has received the formal report from the evaluation team of the Middle States Commission of Higher Education that recently completed its visit to the campus. Most importantly, the report affirms that Hudson Valley is in compliance with the core requirements for Middle States accreditation, and commends the college across a wide variety of areas. According to the document, the college has met or exceeded 13 of the 14 Standards.
Please take the opportunity to review the report, which is available in the “Middle States News” organization on the MyHudsonValley Blackboard portal. There you will find a full list of commendations, suggestions and recommendations provided by the evaluation team.
In total, the report highlights 23 commendations that cover a diverse array of topics: academic support services, physical plant, our full-time to part-time faculty ratio, departmental cooperation, improved grant funding, dedication to student success, use of the TEC-SMART facility, college-wide communication and shared governance, just to name a few. Each commendation recognizes your exceptional work that was praised by the evaluation team. Congratulations to all of you.
The report also includes 11 suggestions for improvement, and concurs with 14 of the 45 recommendations that we identified in our self-study shared earlier with the campus community. The evaluation team included five additional recommendations.
However, the report also states that the college has not met Standard 7, Institutional Assessment. The Evaluation Team report states “HVCC should complete and implement an Institutional Effectiveness Plan that coordinates all aspects of the college’s assessment activities. It should clearly document the assessment results, including those from student learning outcomes assessment and effectively share them with the stakeholders. It should use assessment results to improve teaching and learning and otherwise advance the institution to ensure the college is achieving its mission.” The evaluation team has provided clear direction for the college to work toward improving college-wide assessment and developing an institutional effectiveness plan that pulls together all aspects of the college’s assessment activities. The college began implementing our institutional effectiveness plan in 2012 and will fully complete the implementation cycle by December 2015. We must focus our efforts to address all elements of Standard 7 to ensure that we are in compliance with all Middle States requirements.
Middle States is looking at the broad picture of institutional effectiveness. Over the next several months, the college will examine all assessments being conducted at the department/unit level and document how the information provided by these assessments is being used to improve student outcomes, inform institutional planning and resource allocation, and enhance the overall effectiveness of the institution.
We appreciate the thoughtful review the evaluation team underwent during their visit to campus. Their evaluation report will be presented to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education by team leader Dr. Joann LaPerla-Morales of Middlesex County College in June. The Middle States Commission’s final report will be announced subsequent to that meeting.
As you are aware, Middle States reaccreditation is the means of self-regulation and peer review adopted by the educational community. The process is intended to sustain and strengthen our college. Thank you, again, to everyone who is contributing to this important effort.
Published: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 06:10:42 +0000 by a.matonak